Archive for the ‘Tutorial’ Category

Step 1: Wake up in the morning and feel around for your shoes. Step 2: Learn the chords C, F and G7. Play four bars of C, two bars of F, two bars of C, a bar of G7, a bar of F and two bars of C. Repeat. Step 3: Noodle around with the […]

Despite the increasing amount of tab and chords for ukulele on the internet, we still have to rely on guitar chords for most songs. If you’ve done this a lot, you’ll have come across – and possibly confused by – chords that look like this: D/F#. These are known as ‘slash chords’. On the guitar, […]

I was watching another enlightening and inspiring tutorial by Mark Occhionero today, this time on Little Grass Shack (you can get the tab on the YouTube page). It set me off vamping around in a Hawaiian style (despite the freezing cold weather) and playing the most Hawaiian lick I know:the Hawaiian turnaround. In its simplest […]

“I’m not sure how to end the song.” “Stop playing. If you keep playing, for some reason, people think the song is still going.” You reach the end of a song and what do you do? You could just stop. The outro is a great opportunity for a bit of musical invention, as a way […]

Of all the ten commandments, the one I find most difficult to live by is, “Thy shalt not covet thy neighbour’s uke.” I’ve often found myself browsing eBay or YouTube, ogling the ukes of others and contemplating harvesting the organs of my uglier children to raise the cash to buy one. But my moral compass […]

You’re a fan of an Icelandic psychedelic-folk ukulele trio who released one album in 1964 and promptly split up. They had a stunning uke song that you have to play. The band and their oeuvre are entirely unknown to Google and the massed ranks of Intertubeland. What do you do? I’ve been asked about this […]